


be gay do crime

by galacticmint



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Church Route, M/M, Post Timeskip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 13:44:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20583467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galacticmint/pseuds/galacticmint
Summary: Linhardt steals money from his parents for the war effort, but he also takes something else. Caspar really, really wants to know what it is.





	be gay do crime

**Author's Note:**

> So this is inspired by that tweet going around where linhardt steals 5000g from his family on church route. i havent played church route so this is a bit vague, i just wanted to write it. thank you for staying tuned for this pure dumbass energy.

Wartime called for desperate measures. Most of them, Linhardt wasn’t much a fan of; the violence of war was both exhausting and sickening, and the subterfuge wasn’t much better. But this? He felt a bit smug about this.

“It’s not much, but it’s yours,” Linhardt said, amused by the way Byleth’s eyes widened as he passed them the bag of gold he’d taken from his family’s house as he’d fled. The Professor thanked him profusely and hurried off, probably to go work the new amount into their painstaking budget, and Linhardt leaned back against the wall with a sigh. He had no use for such funds, and it was worth it to see the Professor’s reaction. It seems he wasn’t the only one who thought it was funny; he heard Caspar dissolve into an uproarious laugh next to him. 

“Man, I wish I’d thought of that! All I grabbed was like, food and equipment and stuff. It would’ve have been so worth it to see the Professor jump like that!”

“Well, I didn’t take much in the way of supplies myself, so in the end I suppose it evened out,” Linhardt replied, shaking his head. They’d run into each other on the road on their way back to Garreg Mach, and he’d been grateful for Caspar’s company while they traveled. Over the past five years, he’d only seen Caspar in person a handful of times, a stark difference from academy days, but it had been harder than before to travel to the capital and between their respective territories. Edelgard hadn’t been pleased that neither of them wanted to join her forces. Maybe that was why Linhardt had been so happy to see him that day.

“Really? The money’s all you took?” Caspar laughed again, shaking his head in a disbelieving manner. “Who would have thought I’d be the practical one this time.”

Linhardt regarded him with an unimpressed eye, but decided not to explain to him that money could be used to purchase supplies on the road, and was often lighter, and he was not nearly as up to carrying several weeks worth of food as Caspar was. “It wasn’t all I took,” he told him finally, folding his arms.

“What? What else didja take?” Caspar leaned in, curious, but Linhardt shook his head, refusing to look at him.

“I’ll tell you after the war’s over-- so you better make it until then.”

…

Caspar had always been easy to distract, so Linhardt was surprised when he held onto his question with the tenacity of a bulldog. It felt like once a week he’d appear at Linhardt’s elbow, asking him what else he’d taken from his family’s home. 

“Please pretend to have some semblance of patience,” Linhardt would tell him, “I told you, I’ll tell you when the war’s over.” At times, he was so persistent that Linhardt was starting to doubt his decision to take it in the first place. Most of the time, though, he didn’t mind.

He especially didn’t mind when Caspar found him after each battle now, grinning a smile that cut through the fog in his brain, and insisted he was checking up on him, because if Linhardt fell he’d never find out his secret. He didn’t mind when that became a routine, when he found himself looking for Caspar if Caspar didn’t find him first, when after one particularly rough battle Caspar kissed his forehead in relief and then stared at him like he’d made a huge mistake.

Turns out Caspar didn’t mind either, when Linhardt kissed him back properly, although he protested plenty when Linhardt teased him afterwards over taking too long.

…

And then the war was over. 

It was a testament to how much Caspar had grown up over the past few years that he didn’t immediately round on Linhardt and demand to know what else he’d stolen, which was just as well, because the next six hours were spent tending to injured soldiers of both sides, and then Linhardt slept for fifteen hours after that. 

When he woke up, Caspar wasn’t there, which wasn’t surprising. Expecting Caspar to stay in one place, or indeed one room, for that long was a lot to ask. What did surprise him was the note lying on the desk.

_ Gone to the market-- meet me in the gardens-- bring the thing!!! _

‘The Thing’, Linhardt suspected, was whatever he’d taken from his family home. So things had escalated from Caspar wanting to hear about it to wanting to see it, huh? Well, that was fine. Linhardt dressed and brushed his hair, then took the note with him as he headed towards the gardens. The note didn’t specify where in the gardens they were meeting exactly, but there was a sunny, grassy area where Linhardt had slept many a time during their academy days, and where Caspar had often joined him-- not to sleep, but just for the company.

Sure enough, Caspar was there, fussing over a basket of… something? As Linhardt drew closer he recognized it as food, stuffed buns and sandwiches that he must have gotten from the market. Caspar wasn’t wearing his armor, and it made his silhouette look softer, more friendly-- not that Linhardt ever thought he looked threatening in the first place, but still. He liked the way it looked. It also served as a reminder that the war was over, and that the two of them were safe. The thought warmed Linhardt’s chest as he stepped nearer, and Caspar looked up to grin at him. 

“Great timing!” Caspar cheered, beckoning him over. “I just grabbed some stuff, thought we could have a picnic to celebrate the end of the war-- and you telling me your secret, FINALLY.”

Linhardt rolled his eyes and picked his way closer, settling down on the grass. “Picnics usually involve a blanket,” he pointed out, although of course he’d never had any trouble sleeping on the grass before. 

“Pssht, I don’t mind it, I know you don’t mind it, and also I forgot,” Caspar told him, passing him a roll stuffed with cheese and ham. “Now out with it! Was it some kind of fancy weapon? Seems like everyone’s got a kickass ancestral weapon or something.”

Linhardt sighed. “No, it’s not a weapon.” He bit into the bun, and nodded slowly-- it was pretty good. Good job, Caspar. 

“Well, just tell me! You said you would.”

“I did.” He chewed and swallowed, then set the bun down on his lap, not caring about any crumbs. “I know you don’t pay much attention to gossip, so am I right in assuming you have no idea of what the situation was with my uncle?”

Caspar looked confused, which was exactly what Linhardt had expected, so he went on. “When we were very little my uncle was disinherited for marrying an entirely unsuitable man. He died a few years later, in poverty, and my father went to go retrieve his wedding ring from his widower, I suppose because it was thought too good for him. That’s what I took.”

Caspar's mouth hung open for a moment, eyes wide. “I dunno if that counts as stealing! It sounds like your dad stole it in the first place! So what, you’re gonna find your uncle’s husband and give it back?” He seemed to like the idea of this-- Linhardt supposed it appealed to his sense of justice.

Linhardt shrugged. “Probably not. I don’t know how I’d find him. He might not even be alive now. But my uncle was kind to me when I was a child, and I feel a certain level of kinship with him, so I took it.”

“He was a weird nerd too, huh,” Caspar teased, and Linhardt rolled his eyes at him.

“Probably. But, it was more that I felt I might also find myself marrying an entirely unsuitable man.” Linhardt held his breath. This was it. He glanced at Caspar, who seemed to be avoiding his gaze.

“Uhhhhh… unsuitable how,” he said, gazing pointedly at the sky. It seemed almost like he was asking the clouds rather than Linhardt himself, although Linhardt didn’t know how much help they’d be.

Did he really need more than that? Alright then. “Perhaps someone with no inheritance to speak of,” Linhardt said carefully. “Someone my father would never approve of.” Well, that didn’t matter how; his father was in jail, and Caspar’s father was dead. But the sentiment remained.

Caspar finally looked at him, and his jaw worked like he was trying to find the words. Finally he burst out, “It’s Raphael, isn’t it?”

“What?” That was the last thing he’d expected Caspar to say. He knew who Raphael was, obviously-- he and Caspar were friends, although Linhardt rarely spoke to him. He couldn’t imagine marrying him! 

“Well yeah, I mean, he’s really strong, right! And he’s pretty nice, so I get it, I  _ guess _ . But also he’s a commoner, so I see how that could be a problem--” Caspar’s voice was steadily increasing in both volume and pitch.

“Caspar.” Linhardt said.

“And he’s like huge, I tried following his routine once and I almost _died_, and--”

“Caspar!” Linhardt snapped, and this time his voice got through Caspar’s rambling, and he looked at him properly. Caspar’s face was flushed, and there was a furrowed line between his eyebrows. “Have I misunderstood the nature of our relationship? Do you really think I would be pining away for another man while sleeping in your bed and sharing post-battle kisses? Is that really the sort of person you think I am?”

Caspar gaped at him, and then lifted one hand to point at himself. “_I’m_ the unsuitable man?”

“Obviously!”

“But Raph’s like six and a half feet tall--” Caspar insisted.

“Shut up about Raphael, please, I have no idea where you’re getting that idea from.” Somehow this worked and Caspar shut his mouth with a snap. Linhardt’s amusement fought with annoyance over the whole debacle as he fished the cloth-wrapped ring from his pocket and started to unwrap it. He’d been told the story about his uncle as a precautionary tale when he was ten or so, but he remembered even then finding the deep green stone beautiful. As he unwrapped it, the stone caught the light, looking like sunlight glowing through the trees.

“If I physically hand this to you, I hope it will remove any ambiguity from this conversation,” Linhardt told him, and Caspar nodded frantically. Linhardt held out the ring, pinched between his pointer finger and thumb, and Caspar extended his hand to take it.

“Can I put it on?” he asked, his voice cracking as if he’d been silent for years rather than ten seconds (still a long time for him).

“That depends,” Linhardt replied. “Are you accepting my proposal?”

“You didn’t ask properly,” Caspar argued back, “but obviously.” He jammed the ring onto his finger, and Linhardt snorted.

“You’ve put it on the wrong finger, it’s the third one, not the middle finger,” he told him, amused, and Caspar flushed even further, trying to yank the ring off.

“It’s stuck!”

“What?”

“Your uncle had little fingers!” Linhardt decided not to point out that the ring had not been for his uncle but rather for his uncle’s husband, and reached over to try to help him take the ring off, but it was stuck fast. 

“It’s a metaphor,” he drawled, giving up. “It means you’re stuck with me.”

“I mean, I don’t have a problem with that,” Caspar said, staring at his hand with worry, “but is my finger gonna fall off?”

It did seem to be turning sort of red. Linhardt frowned at the sight. “Alright. Kiss me and then we’ll go find someone to cut it off.”

“It’s my engagement ring, you’re not cutting it _off_!” Caspar protested, pulling his hand from Linhardt’s grasp and clutching it protectively to his chest. Linhardt resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. 

“Well, we’ll get it off with grease or something. Come on, we just got engaged. I’d like at least one kiss before we go deal with the latest consequence of your brashness.”

Caspar couldn’t argue with that. He scooted closer and cupped Linhardt’s cheek in his hand, leaning in.

“For real though,” he said suddenly, right as they were about to kiss. “You really wanna get married?”

Linhardt groaned. “Yes, I do, do you have an objection to that?”

“Nope, just checking!” And then, blessedly, Caspar leaned in the rest of the way and kissed him. They kissed for several minutes, food and ring forgotten, until they broke apart to smile at each other. Linhardt glanced down.

“Well, your finger is turning purple, so let’s go deal with that.”

“Yeah,” Caspar said, grinning from ear to ear. He was always a little bit dopey after they kissed, and it was cute enough to draw Linhardt in again; he kissed his cheek, and then stood up.

“Alright, come on. I have no desire to spend the rest of today trying to reattach your finger. That sounds like altogether too much work.”

Hand in hand, they went to go find Byleth, hoping their strategic genius would save the day once again. Either way, with the war over and the ring given and accepted, the two of them couldn’t help but feel as though the future was bright. 


End file.
